Over the past several years I have witnessed New England communities grapple with challenges that are likely indicators of our changing climate. The sea is creeping into parking lots at high tide in low-lying Rhode Island. The Cape Cod National Seashore rebuilds access to beaches as the sea eats away dunes that have loomed for centuries. After Tropical Storm Irene, we saw Vermont communities helping each other and their state recover from the damage.

As more and more communities deal with rising sea levels, increased coastal erosion, seasonal changes, more intense and frequent storms, flooding, heat waves, public health threats, and threats to native species, I am often asked “What advice does EPA have? Who has already begun addressing these problems?”

I’m proud that our office has just launched an online resource to further help New England communities navigate how to respond to climate change. This resource, called RAINE (it stands for “Resilience and Adaptation in New England,”) is full of links, documents and information on how more than 100 New England communities are taking action to adapt to climate change.

When a town in Southern New England faces flooding, it can check the database and find guidance from Vermont’s experience after Tropical Storm Irene. When a beach community wants to find out how it can provide economic incentives to homeowners to provide extra protection for flooding they can look to Hull, Massachusetts. Hull provides a rebate on building department fees for homeowners who increase their building height above the base flood elevation. Users can see how communities are working with local businesses to adapt, such as in Misquamicut Beach Rhode Island, where businesses that were swept away by Superstorm Sandy are now rebuilding so they can get out of the way if another storm surge threatens them.

Becoming more “resilient” takes effort and forethought. Our communities need leaders who guide us to make investments today that will help us be more resilient tomorrow. The bottom line is, resilience is about people taking action to prepare wisely for the future. The RAINE database helps communities share what they have learned about adjusting to our changing climate, so that other communities can gain from their experience.

On the heels of the Paris climate agreement, with more than 190 countries coming together to reduce emissions in order to lessen the impacts of climate change, our RAINE database is further evidence that what is global is also local. New England communities are leading the way, learning from each other, connecting, and working together to address the impacts we are facing. I may be biased, but it seems to me that New England communities are often leaders when it comes to protecting and living sustainably in our environment.

With RAINE, each community isn’t on their own to reinvent the wheel. We welcome New England’s community leaders to use the RAINE database to learn what others are doing, and we invite you to share your experiences with other local decision makers. We can learn from each other as we tackle the challenges of a changing climate.

4 Comments

Elizabeth Crisfield
Feb 03, 2016 @
06:40:18

A google alert on climate change and northeastern states brought me to your blog. RAINE seems like a great idea and I really hope people think to use it when they are proactively planning. I did find it interesting that proportionately more examples have to do with sea level rise and coastal flooding – it does seem to be the first real climate change impact communities need to work together to address. Other impacts are more sporadic or have more uncertainty or are less linked to climate change, and we aren’t acting as proactively to prepare for those changes. RAINE can show us both what IS being done, and what ISN’T!

We should definitely start taking seriously the matterof climate change. It’s going to end bad for us. We have witnessed a huge climate over the past few years. Take Italyfor instance, it’s never as cold as it used to be during the winter. I remember when I was young it used to be freaking cold and it’s almost as if I lived in a tropical country. We MUST take action.

As general public many of us have a great concern over climate change. But unfortunately so called policy makers ignore this important matter all the time. We hear great number of unheard natural disasters. Soon we all learn a GOOD lesson